Follow the Trail

I never fail to see something new in my internal cases. Sometimes it makes me laugh. Sometimes I think about how much more productive they could have been if they had only used their evil genius for good instead of bad. Sometimes I just look at the employee and sigh. That’s how this last case was. One big “did you really just do that and think you wouldn’t get caught” sigh.

Clothing security is a huge focus in our stores. Many an inventory loss has been avoided because of our diligence. We do a great job using Checkpoint tags to coincide with our clothing alarm. With security tags on clothes, the losses we do incur are easier to track. Take this employee for example.

I was reviewing our report for clothing alarms that happened before and after hours. One incident had shown up. When I reviewed on our CCTV system, it showed an employee leaving with one of our brand new jackets and a pair of pants on. I reviewed her during the day and saw that she had come in to work with a different outfit on, and no bag. When I reviewed for a purchase, there wasn’t one.

This employee had stolen a brand new outfit for her date that night. She said she was going to return it, which is why she didn’t bother to take the clothing security tags off.

If it hadn’t been for the clothing security tags, the clothing alarm wouldn’t have gone off. It was an easy case; you just followed the obvious trail she left behind.